Constantly SelfInflicting Contradiction
by Vestibulocochlear
Summary: In the aftermath of another bloody skirmish, Abel tries not to think about it.


_A/N:_ If you're going to read or plan to review, I simply request you be nice about it. I _just _recently found anything at all out about this fandom, and I'm not going to pretend I'm quite comfortable with it yet, but, you know, some things just beg and plead and demand to be written. I'm not terribly happy with it, either. But what can you do? Inspiration doesn't work on schedule, nor does it only after an allotted amount of information is gathered. And, yes, I am aware of the fact that the title is longer than the story itself.

_Warning/s: _mentions of carnage, blood, violent themes, etc.

* * *

Twisting the delicate chain between his fingers, he watched its precious little bauble, a bare sliver of a cross, bob and turn and tap against his wrists. Before long, though, the length had become entangled, and he was left prying at it, praying the tiny knots would release with a tug in just the right spot. Unfortunately, he couldn't find said spot and they held fast. After a few minutes, he gave it up with a sigh and a faint grimace, eyeing the cluster of tiny metal links balled up in his pale palm with only a marked weariness, not irritation. 

"Well, ah, what _now_?" He pushed round glasses farther up with the tip of a finger against their slim, metal bridge, watching the dead leaves brush the toes of his boots as they skittered past. The cold and cloudy, dark, afternoon was silent, only the subtlest of breezes fluttering against fringes of the scenery. And as Abel sat surrounded by the strewn, scattered stacks of mutilated bodies, he wondered what could have driven formerly peaceable men and women to _this_. Not even the children had been spared; again, however, he eventually surmised that he shouldn't have been so surprised. The world was cruel more often than it was kind.

Near where he sat on the stone steps of the town's only, small, church, IIIX lie face down, damaged, defunct. Both of his hands were still clutching heavily built firearms—one at the end of a limb sprawled crooked above his head, the other buried half beneath his oddly curved torso. (The positioning made Abel uncomfortable just _looking_, no need to mention he was lying halfway down a set of stairs.) The rumples in uniform black robes were pockmarked with bullet holes, slashed wide open in some places. Underneath, though, he was no doubt patching and replacing and returning to normal again, automatically just as good as new.

Slipping the mangled clot of silver into a pocket, Abel smiled and tried to look up. If he didn't concentrate on that broken pillar of a child's arm, fingers clawing at the air; if he could simply stop glancing at the splashes of dark, dried red on a building side; if he didn't, he wouldn't have to pretend quite so hard. The bleak and despairing core of him could be paved over again; everything shattered could always be smoothed away again.

In a series of quick, smooth, mechanical movements, Tres had receded off the ground and snapped to attention. The firearms were out of sight, but more than likely only because he was out of ammunition. Everyone was gone, so that didn't quite matter.

"I see you're finally up again," Abel surmised, with the fleeting brush of a smile.

"Positive. All major and minor system repairs were successful." A faint flicker of a glance. "You are damaged."

"No no, I'm all right." He plucked at the dark stain on his sleeve, the color only evident along the white lining, a familiar shade of red. Although the souls had only just passed, there wasn't a drop of fresh crimson on the ground; there wasn't a pool of blood to be seen, where there should have been hundreds, buckets.

The only blood coated clothes, coated buildings, and coated Abel. Little flecks of red marred the crystalline surface of one round lens. But he wasn't injured anymore.

Bracing hands on his knees briefly, Abel pushed himself to stand and glanced about. Good. He could concentrate less on the carnage if he just stood above it. He plucked the bunched silver strands from his pocket again, holding the necklace up, pinched between two fingers, showing Tres what he meant when he said, "I'm going to return this."

"Further action here is unnecessary. No civilians are alive."

"Well now, that doesn't mean I can't at least give it back. Nothing is a lost cause until you let it lose you, Tres."

He recalled suddenly a throat against his mouth, a hot gush of rich, dark blood, twice turned, burning into his stomach, his veins.

Yes. It _was_ much easier to stand above the carnage, even as that buried half of him kept crouching to revel in the sweet stink of the dead things.

And when he walked away, he knew why everything inside still felt like grating chips of thick, broken glass.

Old, broken glass.


End file.
